


nearly perfect

by brucewaynery



Series: happy steve bingo fills [3]
Category: Marvel
Genre: 1940s ideals, Gen, Happy Steve Bingo, Insecure Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve Rogers-centric, dyslexic steve rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 10:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20851778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucewaynery/pseuds/brucewaynery
Summary: The serum fixed everything. Except for one thing.(AKA Steve Rogers has dyslexia.)INSECURITY





	nearly perfect

The Serum fixed so many things, and did more than fix. Erskine made him so much better than he ever could be, than he ever should be, really, and according to all the records, and all the posters and comics and black-and-white reels, he’s a perfect man. 

And he is. Nearly. He’s perfect in almost every way possible. Almost. If you were to look at him, nothing would be wrong anymore, if you were to tell him to run a city block, he could, fast enough to rival most cars, without breaking a sweat, if you were to send him to the front lines he could hold his own, he could lead, he could win.

But if you were to hand him a mission report, or a long list of European places along the front lines, or, hell, a list of all 48 American states, and tell him to read it aloud in a timed condition? The letters still swam and flipped and switched places pretty much however they pleased.

Didn’t fix that.

It was the very first thing he tested, after the whole street-fight thing. He pushed three cents into the hand of the first seller he saw and pulled the paper open to a random page (reminding himself to reign in his new strength) tried to read the article, he tried and he tried and it was like he was back in school and Miss Luthor was calling him stupid and striking him across the knuckles, and he was trying to defend himself and Miss was telling him to stop making excuses and Bucky was trying to defend him, saying that it wasn’t his fault, that he was just born like that, the way that his asthma wasn’t his fault, and Steve himself was just trying and trying to figure out the name of the author The Three Musketeers, wishing that he could just get it, the way everyone else could, the way he could look at something and copy it down on paper near-exactly with a blunt pencil.

Erskine made him look perfect, made him the perfect soldier, but he didn’t stop the letters from floating about and rearranging, and he didn’t stop him from looking at boys the way he should look at girls.

Didn’t fix that either.

But it’s fine. 

Because now, he’s actually respected, as a person and as a part of the US Army (he definitely won’t be if he tells them that other flaw), he gets the important stuff verbally, and just the details in writing, and even then, he can just pretend, and pretend and pretend, that he’s taking too long because he’s doing a thorough job (and he is, because he wasn’t about to lead his men, or send any men, into a place when he was absolutely certain that it wasn’t another place) and pretend that finally, finally, he’s just like everyone else (but he’s not, even though he was meant to be, according to Erskine’s journal that Howard gave him, he stood out, but nowhere near as much as he did before).

And then 70 years pass with him dead to it all.

He wakes up, and it’s not the first thing on his mind, but he hopes that he can just pretend again. Then he’s pushed into a room full of books and a slim metal thing that apparently has access to all the books in the world and then he’s given paper files about people he once knew and people he’s supposed to get to know.

The next few weeks are a blur, he overhears some people talking about how slow he is, and how bad his spelling is and how bad his handwriting is and one of the younger agents laughs and attributes it to his ‘old-man 1940s-ness’. He tries not to think about how that agent is probably older than him, technically. 

He’s grateful for that, in all reality, because he can carry on pretending, until, until when?

Until they realise that he’s far too dumb to be Captain America, he supposes that pretended could’ve flown in the past (barely a month ago), but now? Where everyone’s smarter and everything is faster and he’s expected to be smarter and faster, he’s not going to last. He’s just. Not going to last.

He makes it three months.

By this time, they (the Avengers) are all living in the (big, ugly, and straight from the future) Tower and Steve’s mostly caught up with the future. He’s allowed to like men now. Not that Captain America can be gay. But maybe Steve Rogers can.

Tony notices first. Not the gay thing, the other thing. The dumb letter thing.

“O, Captain! What do you think about it? Who we gotta send?” Tony asks as soon as the briefs are in their hands. The letters are still floating about, refusing to settle.

Steve tries to stall, because he can’t say ‘I don’t know’ (“Rogers! What on God’s green Earth do you think you mean when you say ‘I don’t know’? The words are right there, for God’s sake, stop horsing around for five seconds and actually try for once, maybe then you’ll have half a chance of living on your own dime.”), because he can’t seem utterly and completely clueless. He manages about three long and excruciatingly painful seconds (it’s been three months, it’s been long enough that he should be better, smarter, faster. And he is, but still only with the maps and the shapes and everything that isn’t fucking reading.), staring at the paper, trying to make sense of it with everyone’s eyes on him, before Tony breezes on, giving his opinions, as though it was Tony himself being slow (not that Steve has ever, in the short, short time he’s been here, seen him be anything under 70 miles an hour, even sleep-deprived and hungover, he’s always been so, so much faster than everyone else).

He hopes to God that he didn’t imagine that wink.

After the meeting, after they have a solid plan and a decent rollcall for the mission, Tony curls his hand and his elbow and tugs him back into the room just as he’s about to leave.

“I don’t wanna assume anything, and you can stop me if this is like, a whole galaxy off-base or something, but I made you something, uh, programmed really, the tablet’s been in circulation for a couple months already, made you a program, that dictates briefs, and whatever else you want to put on there, to you, ’cause, and uh, I’m not calling you stupid or anything, but I’ve noticed that you have a hard time with reading? So, here.”

Tony pushes a tablet in his hands and then steps away and rocks on the balls of his feet.

Steve takes it carefully in his hands. “I, uh, thank you, Tony, really, I, um, the whole reading thing, can you maybe… not tell anyone?”

Tony looks surprised but he agrees, “Do you want me to show you how to use it?”

“Please?”

Tony sits and gestures to a seat and launches into an explanation, “So, JARVIS pretty much runs this, you can type or talk and he’ll talk or type back…”

“...then I told her that the letters never stayed in the same place and--” Steve mimes a whip, “--right around the knuckles with the good old wood rule.”

“A wooden ruler!? I’ll be honest, a good part of me thought that that was fictional,” Tony admits, leaning back. They’re long past teaching Steve how to use the tablet and the sun’s long since on the other side of the planet, but they’re still in the conference room, far away from anything about personalised dictation programs.

Steve raises an eyebrow, “Well, gay marriage seems pretty fictional to me.” 

As soon as that leaves his mouth he feels his blood freeze and slow down in his veins, but all Tony does is nod, conceding, and says, “Touche.”

They’re silent, for a moment, watching the city below, before Tony speaks up again, “I don’t want to assume anything, but the whole letters thing sounds a great deal like dyslexia.”

At Steve’s blank look he explains, “It’s a thing, mental disability, that means you find it hard to read, that the letters move around. No effect on your actual intelligence.”

Steve knows that mental issues are treated much, much better nowadays, that Shellshock has a real name, and is a real Thing and isn’t ‘cowardly’ anymore (because there was nothing cowardly, ever, about kids waking up screaming because of the damn war). 

But taking in that he’s not entirely alone, or helpless, or downright retarded for the first time in his long twenty-five years? A fucking relief.

“Come to the workshop, I’ll have JARVIS run some tests, see if we can get you some overlays or something,” Tony says, standing up and reaching a hand out to Steve.

Steve takes his hand and lets himself be pulled up.

“You know,” Tony starts, when they sit back and wait for the results to render (and if, the results are already rendered, and JARVIS and Tony have a morse code shorthand, then that’s only something Tony and JARVIS know (and Natasha because she caught on the first time she was down here)), “I have anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADHD and alcohol and drug abuse on my file.”

“I’ve seen your file,” Steve says, confused.

“Dyslexia can go in yours and the only thing that’ll change is that anything printed, you’ll get on pink paper,” Tony explains, gently.

“JARVIS,” Steve starts, voice cracking a little, “official Avengers file change, Rogers, Steven Grant…”

**Author's Note:**

> i dont have dyslexia or any experience with it past [this simulator](https://geon.github.io/programming/2016/03/03/dsxyliea), so please tell me if anything is incorrect/offensive!
> 
> kudos/comments/[reblogs](https://au-ti.tumblr.com/post/188072653216/nearly-perfect) si vous plait <3


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